About Me

Sunday, May 3, 2015

Who's sari now?

Well, just about every woman who’s
joined the #100sareepact

Rare is the Indian woman who doesn’t
remember the first time she ever wore a sari, or indeed, the first sari she
ever wore. All of us grew up playing with our mothers’ saris and draping them
around us when she wasn’t looking, parading in front of her dressing table and
fantasizing about how it would feel when we were grown up enough to wear them
for real. In my case, my grandmother, who tended to treat me as her own real-life
doll, would drape her saris around me for her personal amusement, even though
the folds quite drowned my childish frame. And I loved every moment of it.

But that was just playtime. The first
time I ever wore a sari out in public was serious stuff. It was the school
farewell and the entire graduating class made a pledge to wear a sari to the
party. After much agonizing back and forth between chiffon and cotton, printed
or plain, I finally decided to go with the traditional option: a plain off-white
silk with a red border. Called the garad in Bengal, this is the sari that has
since been immortalized in the Dola Re Dola song sequence in Devdas, in which
both Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai don the style worn by all Bengali women on
Bijoya Dashimi as they participate in a ritual called Sindur Khela.

I can’t quite describe the thrill I felt
when it was finally on. Looking at myself in the mirror to put on the finishing
touch of a red bindi, I realized that I had never felt so beautiful, or even elegant,
in my entire life. My teenage body suddenly seemed to acquire a sinuous grace
that had until then been quite unknown to it. I stood straighter, I felt
taller, and best of all, I looked like a grown up. In that moment, as I stood
staring at the reflection of the stranger in the mirror, I made the transition
from girl to woman (even if it was just in my own mind).

My story is far from unique. Ask any
Indian woman and she will have a similar experience to narrate. For all of us,
wearing a sari for the first time ever is a rite of passage. Most often, it
happens for a special occasion: a family function, a wedding in the
neighbourhood, a school social, a religious festival. And the process itself is
marked by a sense of occasion. Everyone has an opinion on what kind of sari
would be best, what sort of blouse would suit the most, whether the pallav
should be worn seedha or ulta. Mothers and elder sisters fuss around as the
sari is finally draped, while grandmoms get a bit teary in the background. And
these days, no doubt, many selfies are taken to mark the occasion.

The sad part, however, is that these days
for urban women like myself and those younger than me, the sari then gets
relegated to the category of ‘special occasionwear’. We only pull it out when
we have a special event in our lives: a presentation to the Big Boss; the
college graduation; a friend’s engagement party; a child’s first birthday; a
ten-year anniversary; a wedding. It’s only when we want to feel special that we
drape a sari, folding ourselves into its special embrace. Otherwise, it’s all
jeans and shirts, churidar-kurtas, salwar-kameezes, skirts and tops, short
dresses. Oh, they’re so much more convenient, we tell ourselves, as we relegate
our saris to that steel cupboard that never gets opened more than once a year.

Well, you know what? It’s time to change
all that. It is time we reclaimed the sari for our own, and for the everyday –
not just the special – moments of our lives. Not just because the elegance of
the sari, the sensual beauty of its drape, would elevate even the most mundane
day of our lives. Not just because the sari deserves its moment in the sun
after spending decades in the darkness of the back of our closets. But because
we need to reinforce its image as a living, breathing garment before our
daughters and granddaughters dismiss it as a dead relic of the past, treating
it as ‘costume-wear’ rather than ‘everyday-wear’ (like the Chinese treat the
cheongsam or the Japanese the kimono).

If you are up for the task, then you
can’t do better than join the #100sareepact . This is an initiative started by
two Bangalore women, Ahalya (Ally) Mathan and Anju Maudgal Kadam, who made a
pact between themselves to wear a hundred saris in 2015. They started a social
media hashtag – which has since gone viral – to encourage other women to join
in.

Joining the #100sareepact is simplicity
itself. All you have to do is pledge to wear a sari on 100 days out of 365 (no,
you don’t have to wear a hundred different saris; that would be plain silly),
take a picture of yourself in the sari of the day and upload it on social media
(Twitter, Facebook, or on www.10sareepact.com) with a small
note on the sari itself, or the memories and stories attached with it for other
women to share and comment on.

It’s been a week since I joined, and I
have already chalked up five saris out of a 100. Several of my friends have
too, and we haven’t had so much fun in a long time, as we bond over our saris
and the stories that revolve around them. Come join the club. You have nothing
to lose but those boring blue jeans!

4 comments:

I love sarees, my all time fave attire. My dp on twitter/IG is in a saree, I have worked with the saree as uniform at the airport for 8 wonderful years. Now sadly I need new blouses. Will get back one day. Need to celebrate the collection I have painstakingly built over the years.

Seema., Inspired by the 100 Saree Pact.... We Saree lovers have formed the group "Delhi Saree Challenge" on Face book with an idea of inspiring and motivating us urban women to wear Sarees on a regular basis...at least 2 a week and post their pics with their saree story on the FB page...

Loved your article totally.. Took us through time n back :)

In the very little time that the group has been formed...am delighted to tell you that the response has been really tremendous...

My heart was gladdened that there's still lots of hope for our beautiful saree in our daily city life n living...

Would love you to take up the challenge too and be a part of our group as well..

Hi,I'm new to Delhi and am going to start the pact this week. I think it's such a fabulous idea. Would love to know if there are meet ups, groups, etc. where we can meet and exchange ideas, sarees while having a few beers...CheersVidya

This is true that sari has almost disappeared from the urban Indian landscape.But we can get back it on the scene, if just it is utilized in a proper manner.You can buy lehenga saree online only at Kaashvi creations.